


no i can't let go, 'cause i love you so (and also my hands are numb)

by TetrodotoxinB



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Admissions of Love, Brief references to medical procedures, Gratuitous ABBA, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Really immature men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 08:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15602229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Steve and Danny end up locked in an ice cream freezer. It's funny right up until it isn't.





	no i can't let go, 'cause i love you so (and also my hands are numb)

**Author's Note:**

> Note that ice cream freezers are colder than walk-in refrigerators and meat lockers; they run at -10F (-23C).
> 
> Thanks to em and dee for their ABBA brainstorming, and to dee for the title, which comes in part from Take a Chance on Me.
> 
> Playlist!!! Sing along with Steve and Danny!  
> \- [Take a Chance on Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72r32bceDzg)  
> \- [Gimme gimme gimme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWay7CDEyAI)  
> \- [Lay all your love on me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2seCB54Bv-c)
> 
> And bonus!  
> \- [The Winner Takes it All](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-YlndYkJl0)

“Here Danny, take my shirt.”

“Are you kidding me? No, I will not take your shirt.”

Steve draws a deep breath like he’s going to sigh but checks himself at the last moment. “Danny, I did months of cold water conditioning. I won’t get hypothermia as quick as you will. Just take the shirt.”

“Is that how SEAL training works — they beat the hypothermia out of you? You’re too stupid to catch it now?” Danny asks, his hands on his hips. 

“You can’t catch hypothermia, Danny.”

“I’m glad that’s the salient point in this conversation.”

“Dammit, Danny—”

“No, Steven. We are locked in an ice cream freezer for the foreseeable future, and I am not taking the one piece of insulation that you have for your torso. Thank you Mr. Self-Sacrifice, but no.”

Steve resists his initial impulse to fight the shirt onto Danny. Instead, using the tone of voice reserved for arguing specifically with Danny, he calmly says, “I already have the shirt off.”

“Well put it back on. Don’t tell me your super-SEAL fingers are already too cold to work the buttons.”

“Danny, I’m trying to help here.”

“Well, then build me an igloo,” Danny demands as he waves his arms at the contents of the freezer. “Maybe you could use all this _ice cream_.”

“I could build something out of that,” agrees Steve.

“Oh, could you? Why not just rip open a dead animal instead and stuff me inside of it. Are there any dead animals in here big enough for that?”

“This is an ice cream freezer, Danny, not a meat locker. And even if it were, I don’t think there are any tauntauns on the islands; they can’t clear quarantine.”

“Oh, look there’s humor in there,” Danny says with heavy sarcasm. “Fantastic. Maybe you can tone down the serious thing you have going on, and put your shirt back on before you get frostbite on your nipples.”

“Danny, this is serious,” Steve asserts as he peers into the fan grate at the top of the freezer wall.

“I did actually notice that. I know you think that I’m a complete moron, but I am in fact a police detective and very good at taking stock of my surroundings.”

“Fine so what do you suggest we do?” Steve asks as he jumps down.

Danny glares. “I know — how about we try to find a way to keep ourselves from freezing to death _without_ taking off our clothes?”

“Alright. Well the door is padlocked on the outside and shooting it wouldn’t do much since the door is six inches thick and we don’t know where exactly the lock is. We can’t disable the fan because that’s also what’s supplying us with fresh air and the opening is too small to fit through so there’s no point. I would say we could try it for cell reception, but there’s no reception in the whole warehouse. So we’re really left with trying to build you your igloo and then waiting this out.”

“Okay, shelter is good. We’ve got, what, a few hundred cartons of gourmet ice cream here? That enough igloo material?”

“Yes, Danny. That’s probably going to be enough igloo material. Which by the way is not the worst idea you’ve had. Here, gimme a hand.”

“Oh, not the worst idea I’ve had?” Danny grumbles. “Okay, and whose idea was it to run into what I told you was a trap? Hmm? Was it yours Steven? Because I recall being the one who said, ‘Hey let’s wait outside and call for backup.’”

“Danny, our cars are outside. They have GPS. Chin and Kono will be here in a few hours.”

“No, ours cars _were_ outside, but one of them took my keys. And this freezer is at minus ten. We’ll have hypothermia in a few hours. By the time they figure out something is wrong, chase down our cars on the wrong end of the island, and then find us here we’re gonna be in bad shape.”

“You think I don’t know that, Danny?” Steve responds. He’s getting testy. They won’t be hypothermic for a while, but the cold does drain them pretty quickly and Steve can feel it effecting his emotional stability already, or maybe that’s just Danny’s sour attitude. All the same, Steve regrets the tone of his voice immediately.

“I don’t know. Mostly I’m just thinking of all the homeless guys we zipped up in body bags every winter back in Newark.”

“I know,” Steve says, his tone softer. “But we’re not gonna let that happen. Come on and open the boxes, I’ve got plans.”

*****

“Come you gotta sing louder, Danno. No falling asleep.”

“C-can’t. I h-hate it,” he slurs as he clutches at the plastic wrap from the boxes that forms a makeshift tunic. Steve wishes he could attribute the disjointed speech to shivering, but they’ve long since stopped that. Danny’s just wearing out. Steve does his best not to consider how much colder than him Danny has to be. 

Instead, Steve asks, “Who hates ABBA, Danny? That’s un-American.” 

“They’re n-not American.”

“That’s not the point. Something’s wrong with you if you don’t like ABBA,” Steve counters. He can’t feel anything anymore, but he’s still awake and mostly alert and he’s going to leverage that to help Danny for long as he can, even if that means antagonizing him. Maybe especially if he gets to antagonize him.

“I like ABBA f-fine. I just don’t like your s-singing.”

“Well then sing louder and drown me out.”

Danny glares at Steve out of the corner of his eye and starts singing. 

“If you change your mind, I'm the first in line  
Honey I'm still free  
Take a chance on me…”

By the end of the song Danny’s tired slurring is better, but his shoulders still slump with exhaustion.

“Alright, now that’s some enthusiasm. How do you feel?”

“Cold, you asshole.”

“Come here, get closer,” Steve says, reaching out to pull Danny fully against him

“God you’re like an octopus. You got anymore arms you want to wrap around me?”

“Well, I mean if you want to get really warm…”

Danny pulls his head back from where he was resting it on Steve’s shoulder and scowls. “Steven John McGarrett. Did you just refer to your dick as an arm?”

“It was just a joke, Danny… But I mean if you thought it would help…” Steve jokes with a shrug.

“If we weren’t going to f-freeze to death in this stupid warehouse I would kill you for that comment alone.”

“Yeah, sorry. Not my best material, I know,” Steve says almost apologetically. Mostly, he’s just upset that Danny’s slurring is already back.

“Steve,” Danny asks with a suddenly sharp breath. He burrows closer against Steve who in turn wraps his arms tighter. “W-why do you sound like I k-kicked your puppy?”

“‘M just tired is all.”

“L-liar. McGarretts n-never get t-tired.”

Steve hopes the blush of hypothermia covers what feels like a flush rising on his skin. He doesn’t have anything to say to Danny, at least not anything he’s ready to admit just yet, so he sits in their igloo in silence and doesn’t look at his wrist watch which reminds him that they’ve been locked up for over six hours. 

He pulls Danny tighter and half-heartedly tries to get him to sing some more ABBA. 

“Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight  
Won't somebody help me  
Chase the shadows away…”

*****

“Danny, Danny, come on, man. You gotta stay awake. Please don’t pass out on me.”

Steve knows that things are getting dire. Nine hours in and there’s no sign of help. Danny stopped shivering hours ago, long before their ABBA binge, but he’s at least been awake and semi-lucid. Now, though, his eyes are glassy.

“Danny, hey come on. I got something important to tell you.”

Once Danny goes to sleep, Steve knows he won’t have long. He’s long since reached exhaustion himself. The need to keep Danny awake, and therefore alive, means more to him than keeping himself alive and it’s his main motivation for hanging on. That’s how they were trained in SEALs — your team before yourself. Steve’s never been in a situation where his survival he was all he had to consider and he’s not about to start thinking about it now.

“Danny.” Steve gives Danny as much of a shake as he can muster, his muscles barely responding, loose and uncoordinated. “Come on.”

Danny blinks a few times and finally turns to Steve. “What?”

“I need to tell you something.”

“So tell me.”

“Earlier, when I made the arm joke-”

“Lemme die in peace without hearing that joke again,” he rasps out, every vowel long and very consonant coming out mumbled. It’s like listening to Danny through a wall. If he were also drunk. 

“No, Danny. I- I was trying to- I didn’t know how to tell you how I really feel.”

“How you really feel?” Danny asks, his eyes still barely open but still wider than they were just a minute ago.

“I love you,” Steve says, and it feels like weight lifts off his chest. He’s said it. No regrets. If he dies, he won’t have died a coward.

“I love you, too, you big mook,” Danny answers.

Steve lowers his face to Danny’s head and lays it there on the ice crystals that are crusted in Danny’s hair. They don’t thaw against Steve’s skin and he closes his eyes, hoping that help comes in time.

*****

They made the mistake of separating them, but Steve needs to see Danny. He waits until his temp is high enough that he’s not in danger, a solid 96°F/36°C, before disconnecting his IV and monitoring leads and slipping out of his bed in the ICU to sneak over to Danny.

Walking seems like the most strenuous thing Steve’s done in years. Now that his everything isn’t numb, his entire body _hurts_. The ache of his muscles from hours of shivering is nothing next to the way that the sensation of pins and needles shoots through him with every movement and every touch. But Steve had long since learned that while the pain wasn’t going anywhere, giving into it was just a state of mind. So stifling any moans of pain, Steve slips out of his ICU bay and through the unit, peeking behind curtains, until he finds Danny’s prone form.

By any standard Danny looks like utter shit. He’s pale and sweating, even though his skin is cold to the touch, and Steve can’t help the worry that sits heavy in the pit of his stomach. Steve knows he’s being ridiculous — neither of them got cold enough to go into organ failure and they missed the worst of the rewarming protocols, though only by a slim margin — but seeing Danny quiet and still has never failed to instill fear in Steve.

A harried looking nurse flings the curtain to Danny’s bay open and glares at Steve. But the glare melts into something almost fond when she sees the way that Steve grips Danny’s hand. She sticks her head out of the curtain, calling to someone else that she’s found their escapee, and then she joins Steve by the bed.

“You had us worried, Mr. McGarrett,” she chides softly.

“Sorry. The other nurse wouldn’t tell me anything useful. I needed to see him.”

She nods understandingly. “Word is you two were pretty thoroughly attached to one another when they found you.”

“Trying to stay warm,” Steve says, like that’s an explanation anyone’s gonna believe. Like that’s all it meant to him.

“Smart move. Probably the reason you’re both still alive.”

Steve nods absently but his focus is on the rise and fall of Danny’s chest. The nurse starts moving around the room, checking on the various IV bags and monitors. After a moment Danny opens his eyes, blinking until he seems to focus, and a small smile tugs at his lips.

“Hey.”

Steve swallows against the lump in his throat and smiles back. “Hey yourself.”

“You already better?” Danny rasps, his voice still scratchy from the tube that Steve had watched the paramedics jam down Danny’s throat at the warehouse. 

“No, but he’s a menace and we can’t keep him in his bed where he belongs,” the nurse injects with fake anger.

Danny smiles wider and turns to her. “I’ve been trying to keep him in line for years. Never works.”

The nurse smiles brightly. “Well, I’m glad to know it’s not a personal failure of mine. At any rate, roll over on your side. I need to check your temp again.”

Danny groans. “I promise to die quietly if you don’t stick that thing in me again.”

“Danny, come on. It’s just a thermometer. Don’t be such a baby,” Steve teases.

“That’s rich coming from the guy who’s not stuck in a hospital bed,” Danny snipes back. “I don’t see you having bare your ass.”

“If it will improve your mood, I can take his temp, too,” the nurse offers with barely contained laughter.

“Oh, yes. Please do. I’m pretty sure his heart is nearly frozen most of the time anyway. Maybe you can do something about that.”

The thermometer beeps and she holds the display over where they can read it — 93.5°F/34°C.

“Jesus, Danny.” Steve knows they were both in the mid- to low-80s (28°C) when they were rescued, but hearing it after the fact and seeing Danny so cold now are very different things. Steve’s tired, the exhaustion of the ordeal becoming harder to ignore now that he’s sure that Danny’s alright, or at least on his way there. 

While the nurse taps information into her tablet, Steve cups Danny’s hand in both of his and lets his head rest on them. 

“I’ll be back for you here in a minute Mr. McGarrett,” the nurse says with false sternness.

“I’m not leaving him,” Steve answers stiffly.

The nurse snorts. “No, I think we all already realized that much. How about we just shoot for you being vaguely cooperative?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve answers quietly, too tired to keep up the playful banter.

The curtain swishes closed and what little energy Steve had been using in service of his charade of well-being is gone immediately. He practically melts onto the edge of the bed next to Danny.

“Hey, babe. Talk to me. What’s wrong?” Danny asks.

“Just tired.”

“There you go, lying to me again.”

“I _am_ tired,” Steve protests, and for a moment he really is so tired that he almost forgets what’s got him upset.

“Fine. Don’t tell me.”

Steve looks up, suddenly flooded with shame. He had told Danny that he loved him, but he didn’t explain it, didn’t tell him that it was _more_. He took the cheap way out, he realizes. Under that building he’d done the same thing when Danny had rebar sticking through his side and there were no guarantees they’d survive. But at the time he hadn’t meant more, or more honestly, he hadn’t realized that he did. 

They’re not dying now so the urgency he had felt is gone, but suddenly Steve knows that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but Danny and the way that Steve has slowly built his life around that asshole and his loud mouth. But before Steve can straighten this out, the nurse breezes back in. 

“Alright, we don’t normally do this, but since you’re both going to be difficult here’s the plan.”

Ten minutes later Steve and Danny are squished up alongside one another, their beds nearly touching in the tiny ICU bay. Steve’s IVs got hooked back up to the saline lock which he had wisely left in his hand, and Danny’s got fresh warm water bottles for his armpits and groin. 

Danny got to laugh hysterically when Steve got his temperature checked again, which in turn made the nurse giggle and snort. To see Danny smile, Steve thinks it’s almost worth having someone stick a thermometer up his butt.

But then they’re alone and the audience that doesn’t need to hear what Steve has to say is gone. Any further delays are just that — delays. Steve musters what courage he can find and reaches into Danny’s bed, lightly touching his hand.

Without hesitation, Danny laces their fingers together. “What Steve? You sure you’re okay? Ice didn’t leave you with permanent brain damage?”

Steve smiles but shakes his head. “You remember in the freezer? When I told you I had something important to tell you?”

“Sure, you told me you loved me,” Danny says. “Do you need to take that back now that we’re not dying?”

“No. I wanted to explain.”

“What’s to explain? We had a building dropped on us once. You told me then, too.”

“I don’t just love you, Danno. I’m _in_ love with you.” 

All the losses in his life — Dad, Doris, Freddie, every person who sent him away or walked away or just died where Steve couldn’t save them — it all rushed up in technicolor clarity because part of him is terrified that he might lose Danny, too. Declaring your love for your partner is a crapshoot at best, but when you’re both men? Steve thinks he might do better if he tried skydiving without parachute.

“Oh.” And the muted surprise in Danny’s voice tells Steve everything he needs to know. 

“I’m sorry, Danny,” he says and pulls his hand away. “I just- it’s stupid but I felt like I should tell you. I don’t expect anything.”

“Uh huh,” Danny answers. He’s wearing the same face that he makes when someone is being colossally stupid but he’s still working up to the part where he rips them a new one. Steve braces himself for the worst. “So how long you been going on like this, Steven?”

“Couple years,” Steve confesses.

“Interesting. And it took both of us nearly dying _again_ for you to man up and tell me?”

Steve doesn’t cringe because SEALs don’t cringe, but the sensation of ice runs up his spine anyway. “More or less.”

“And you don’t expect anything from me?”

Steve shakes his head, his chest aching like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. “No, of course not. I don’t want this to affect anything — just work partners, and friends I hope, nothing more. I’ve kept it to myself this long. I don’t want to change anything.”

“You don’t want this to affect anything? Why the hell not? You great big idiot. Did you bother to ask me how I felt about any of this before deciding that I would not be in favor of- of you?!” Danny snapped. 

“Wait? _What?_ ”

But Danny barrels on with his rant, running right over Steve’s words. “Of course I am interested. But you, Mr. Super SEAL, and Cath — you two were always busy boinking in your off hours, and somehow you managed to never tell me about being your sexuality. I was trying to be respectful of your personal relationships, Steven. That does not mean I am uninterested.”

The panicked tightness in his chest releases so fast that Steve nearly chokes. It takes a few moments, but once Danny’s words sink in, really truly sink in, Steve’s brain seems to short circuit.

All Steve knows is that suddenly Danny is holding his hand through the bedrails and squeezing. “Hey, babe. What’s going on in there?”

“I’m not sure,” Steve admits. 

“We’ve got a lot to think about,” Danny points out gently. “Maybe let’s save it for after we’re all better and rested.”

Steve nods and concedes, at least privately, that exhaustion and the lingering effects of the hypothermia are probably what’s gumming up his brain at the moment. 

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get over here in this bed and help warm me up,” Danny orders like this is the foregone conclusion of Steve’s sudden revelation.

The potential double-entendre of Danny’s command hits Steve all at once. “Danny, we’re in the ICU. There’ll be a nurse in here in less than five minutes for rounds.”

“I like how you think I have the energy for sex right now. I do not. This is just extended huddling for warmth, okay?”

“Yeah, alright,” Steve agrees with a bleary smile. 

Carefully, Steve moves the IV bag to the pole on the other side of his bed, and then drops the side rails between them. With wobbly arms, Steve scoots himself over until he’s nestled right up against Danny. Danny has wiggled over to the far bedrail, and with the extra space Steve only just fits. He pulls the bed rail up behind himself and then rolls up on his side, making sure their tubes and wires are clear before drawing the covers over them both. 

Danny can’t really lift his arms up if he wants to keep the hot water bottles in place, but Steve just curls around him and lays his head on Danny’s chest. Danny’s still cool to the touch, even with the blankets and the water bottles, but even still cold himself Steve doesn’t mind in the slightest. 

“Comfortable there, babe?” Danny asks when Steve resituates one of his legs over Danny’s.

“Still don’t have all my arms wrapped around you,” Steve mumbles into the front of Danny’s gown.

“When we get home you can wrap all your arms around me however you want,” Danny promises. And then, as if to punctuate his point, Danny starts to sing.

“ _Lay all your love on meeee._ ”

The resulting chorus draws a swift rebuke from a nurse who storms into their room warning them to be quiet for the sake of everyone else in the ward. Unfortunately, the importance of her message is undercut by the crinkle of her eyes when she sees them barely squished into the small bed and curled tightly around one another. 

Steve smiles too and burrows against Danny’s chest again, never happier in his life to have almost died.


End file.
